Lachlan Murdoch’s Dangerous Mistake
The 48-year-old Lachlan Murdoch stood by as Fox News hosts played down the danger of the deadly coronavirus to their viewers. Fox failed its viewers and the broader public in ways both revealing and potentially lethal. In particular, Lachlan Murdoch failed to pry its most important voices away from their embrace of the president’s early line: that the virus was not a big threat in the United States.
Just days after being transferred to the Wende Correctional Facility from NYC’s Rikers Island, the Oscar winning producer and convicted rapist is now in medical isolation, a New York state law enforcement official confirms.
Like every other newsroom, WRAL-TV is grappling with the unique challenges of covering the coronavirus. But the Capitol Broadcasting station in Raleigh is also exploring those challenges publicly in the latest episode of a new podcast called How to Commit Journalism.
Exclusives
An ABC News staffer working on the 5th floor of the network’s 47 West building in New York tested positive for the coronavirus Saturday. TVNewser obtained an internal memo from ABC News President James Goldstonto, sent yesterday, announcing that the staffer was last in the office on March 12 before experiencing any symptoms. However, the staffer officially tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday.
The International Olympic Committee still insists the Games will go ahead as planned and will not be cancelled, but it’s facing growing opposition from athletes, teams and federations for a delay. Sources tell Reuters that Tokyo Games organizers are also drafting possible alternatives to holding the Games this summer.
Margaret Sullivan says President Trump has begun using his daily press briefings on the coronavirus pandemic as a substitute for his sidelined campaign rallies rather than the critical venues for public information they should be. In response, she says news organizations should stop taking the briefings as live feeds and instead cover the news within them with context and fact checking at every step.
The U.S. economy has never before come to such a sudden, violent stop, crating into a probable deep recession with millions likely to lose their jobs by summer.
In what may have been the most peripatetic week in broadcast news history, CBS This Morning was likely the nation’s most dramatically displaced production with three moves in one week. Its executive producer shares details of the numerous challenges the show faced working with a skeleton crew under exhausting conditions, ultimately finding a home at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Even though demand for local news has never been higher than during the pandemic and websites are seeing upwards of five times their usual traffic, local newspapers and some radio broadcasters are already facing layoffs. “Economically, this is devastating,” said one radio executive. “We are modeling daily on how to keep people when we have no money coming in the door.”
A total of four Fox News Media employees have now tested positive for coronavirus according to an internal memo. All of the affected employees’ direct co-workers must now quarantine for 14 days.
Local TV Spreads Messages Of Hope, Togetherness
Now, more than ever before, people are turning to local TV news for information they can trust about the changing conditions in their town, their city, county and state due to the coronavirus. And local TV marketers are responding with messages of hope and optimism, togetherness and kindness. Not the usual themes of local TV news promotion, but maybe the ones we need to hear right now.
The White House Correspondents’ Association is postponing its giant dinner scheduled for late April, but still hopes to hold the annual event this summer or fall if the coronavirus threat abates.
The new XFL football league has stopped its first season, after a week where the league said it was “suspending” its season due to issues around COVID-19. “The COVID-19 pandemic, and the most recent state and local regulations, have left the XFL no choice but to officially cancel the remainder of the 2020 season,” according to a statement from the league. The league stops after five weeks of games, after launching Feb. 8.
With CBS News’ home base in New York closed due to coronavirus, CBS owned stations are helping get the national newscasts out to viewers. The weekend of March 21-22, CBS Weekend News will be produced out of Dallas, with KTVT staffers filling key roles in the production.
Local TV’s Practical, Positive Virus Responses
TVNewsCheck‘s Paul Greeley: “I follow more than 500 TV stations’ Facebook pages and what I see every day are countless examples of news coverage about the coronavirus. All necessary, all important. But what I want to share are examples of the more practical posts on how to cope with the disruptions, and the measures some are taking to help each other.”
CNN’s Anderson Cooper joined the growing list of newscasters and talk show hosts broadcasting remotely on Friday night. He hosted Anderson Cooper 360 from home after one of his staffers expressed that they believed to be positive for coronavirus. “I don’t have any symptoms, I feel fine,” Cooper said. “It’s just an abundance of caution to keep everybody around me–and everybody on our staff is going to be staying out of the office for a while.”
NBCUniversal is making MSNBC and CNBC available to all video customers throughout the coronavirus crisis, similar to an announcement from Fox earlier this week, though NBCU’s viewers must authenticate by providing a pay TV password. NBCU Owned Stations, including Telemundo stations, will also be streaming their local newscasts and coronavirus-related press conferences, and NBC News NOW will be showing more content from MSNBC, CNBC and NBC News.
The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah is streaming from his couch, Jimmy Fallon is checking in from his back yard and Jimmy Kimmel continues to offer quarantine “minilogues” as late night hosts continue their digital efforts to reach out connect with their sheltering-at-home viewers.
For years, U.S. television networks have spent increasing amounts of money on “sports packages,” paying billions of dollars for the rights to show baseball, basketball and other games exclusively. The high fees were justified because live contests offered a unique asset — unskippable, real-time drama in the age of DVR. But that immediacy is now proving to be a great weakness.
Netflix will create a $1 million fund to help the creative community affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos announced Friday. “Almost all television and film production has now ceased globally — leaving hundreds of thousands of crew and cast without jobs. These include electricians, carpenters and drivers, many of whom are paid hourly wages and work on a project-to-project basis.”
Many journalists are covering a once-in-a-lifetime story from home, thanks to Zoom and Slack. But as readers flock to large news outlets, ads are starting to disappear.
Readers are flocking to news sites during the coronavirus pandemic. The media has a basic commodity — information — that people are craving as they try to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. And yet, financially, the crisis is delivering a punishing blow to already struggling local publishers.
Big news stories can dominate the entire news cycle for weeks, months, even years. But very few are as earth shaking as the recent coronavirus outbreak, which is dominating the news cycle and changing the way news organizations work.
